Quote from: I on July 27, 2023, 09:27:05 AM
It's a bigger deal than it might seem because, time and again for decades now, we've seen the left start with demands that seem small and reasonable, then once they get that they keep pushing until their demands become unreasonable and even damaging.  It's why I no longer like to even give the left that first inch, no matter how small and reasonable it is.  Consider the following on the REASONABLE -----------------------> UNREASONABLE scale:

White Supremacy is bad ----------------------------> Valuing objectivity & being at work on time are White Supremacy
Saying that all Jews are born greedy is bad -----------------------------------> Saying that all White people are born racist is fine
Transsexuals should be allowed to serve in the military ------------------------> Transsexuals are exempt from deployments and PT standards
Peaceful mass protests are fine -------------------------------------> Mass looting and arson are peaceful protests
Colleges should stop discriminating against Blacks -------------------------> Colleges should discriminate against Whites and Asians
Police should be less brutal and more fair, esp. to minorities -----------------------> Police shouldn't enforce the law, especially for minorities
Federal law re: voting and immigration are supreme and trump state laws -----------------> Feds will selectively enforce voting laws and not enforce immigration laws at all
Government censorship is bad, freedom of speech is good -------------------------------> Government censorship of conservatives is OK, freedom of speech isn't a right

From these examples, and I could provide many more, it's not a far stretch to see that

Use "they and them" instead of "he and she" ------------------------------>Newspeak

And before you discount that as being hysterical, consider the examples above.  How many times, when objections were raised to the initial proposition, did we hear "The slippery slope is just a fallacy; you're making a mountain out of molehill; this is a reasonable compromise that will settle the issue permanently"?  Every single case started like that, but they sure didn't end that way.

Looking at your example list... Let's say a company announces a position that "Government censorship is bad, freedom of speech is good" - and maybe takes actions to reflect this, like supporting free speech in academia and donating to FIRE.

Are you saying that company should be called out and attacked for this position - because that is a step along the woke slippery slope?!?

Quote from: Corolinth on July 27, 2023, 01:03:51 PM

It was one thing to eliminate the female strength penalty and let the girl play Brienne of Tarth. It is quite another thing to depict the blacksmith and half the lumberjacks as women. We jumped the shark with "inclusivity". Once the shark gets jumped, the audience can't pretend it ain't what it is.

And that's where Goodman Games is, now. Even if they're not pandering to the rainbow mafia's designer pronouns, they're still pandering to the rainbow mafia's designer pronouns. Once everything got political, everything is political.

....I don't even know where to begin with this...

Like, I'm called a Nazi (despite having a Jewish wife, and therefore a Jewish Daughter) regularly... as well as a racist and a misogynist by the left...

And then I come on here, and I literally see a dude complaining that women can be Heroes in Elfgames. Oh he'll come back and say "I don't have a Problem with that" but then he lists Brienne of Tarth as his example.

Holy shit dude, I bet you wouldn't last a day as a Lumberjack or a Blacksmith yourself... But you don't have any issues with playing a Conan the Barbarian type in your own games right? What the fuck is wrong with letting women be Red Sonja?

Quote from: Orphan81 on July 27, 2023, 12:43:16 PM
And non-gendered language has been in use with RPGS for 30+ years now. DCC was behind the times was all. Sure they probably did it for some brownie points with the Progs, but again it's not the end of the world.

I prefer non-gendered languages in my RPG books. It makes it appeal to a broader audience, always has.

This is just one of the many reasons why guys who played whitewolf games got laid more than guys who just played D&D in the 90s and 00s.

These days, using the term "Players" and "GMs" as opposed to "He" or "She" is even better. You cut out all the nonsense in the first place.

But acting like switching to non-gendered language in Dungeon Crawl Classics is the first step to the Gulag is the equivalent of the Christian Right who lost their minds and thought D&D was the first step to Satanism. That's what you sound like right now. That is literally who you're coming across as.

Now you come to me and tell me DCC has put a space for "Preferred Pronouns" on the character sheet... I WILL agree with you.

But switching up to a standard that's been around and used by other games for decades now, and doubles as a way to make some extra money by conning the Progs? I don't care.

A book that uses singular "they" switches to "he" on the grounds that "he" is traditionally gender neutral. The screeching from the pronoun people would be deafening, much much louder than the discussion here.

Orwell was correct to point out that language corrupts thought. The pronoun people do shit like he/they, ze/zir, and xe/xem/xyr. What do these mean? Depends on who you ask. They are the ones corrupting thought, and people here are right to point it out.

Quote from: rytrasmi on July 27, 2023, 02:34:51 PM
A book that uses singular "they" switches to "he" on the grounds that "he" is traditionally gender neutral.

"He" is Gender Neutral.

"He" is Gender Neutral.

Alright, assuming this is correct (which it's not), then you really shouldn't have any issues with the use of other gender neutral language. You're making the argument in favor of it right there.

But we both know that's bullshit, and "He" hasn't been gender neutral since... well, since ever really. "He" was used historically because men were the ones who were seen as the only audience for this type of stuff.

Again, this is why D&D guys didn't get laid, but Whitewolf guys did. We weren't fucking weird when it came to letting girls play at our tables, or reading rule books.

Jesus Christ, this shit is making me more Liberal just reading it... and I fucking hate Progressives and what they've done to Western Videogames.

But holy shit, some of you guys want to drag us back to the Dark Ages where women were seen as 'icky' and got Strength penalties if they were allowed to play at all.

Again, if the character sheets start asking for Preferred Pronouns, and the game starts actively promoting non-binary characters in it... I *WILL* agree with you. I will be on your side for this.

But this kind of change doesn't warrant this kind of panic.

Quote from: Orphan81 on July 27, 2023, 02:42:46 PM
"He" is Gender Neutral.

Alright, assuming this is correct (which it's not), then you really shouldn't have any issues with the use of other gender neutral language. You're making the argument in favor of it right there.

"He" is traditionally gender neutral. My older edition of DCC even says that. Go read about it or something.

I don't have issues with gender neutral language. I have issues with overloading the word "they."

The mage cast fireball on the peasants and they were happy about that.

Etc, etc, the examples of how clarity is lost are numerous and obvious.

You could possibly recast mountains of prose to make an overloaded they clear. Or you can just say that mankind is full of men who go by "he" and half of them are sometimes referred to as "women" and when that's important to mention we say "she." Easy and done. And for the record, if it were the opposite, I wouldn't care, i.e., womankind is full of women who go by "she" and half of them are sometimes referred to as "men" and when that's important to mention we say "he."

Quote from: Orphan81 on July 26, 2023, 09:26:06 PM
I'm fully with you on this one. The amount of cringe I've experienced from folks here who think the removal of gendered language in a rulebook is a sign of the end times has killed me twice and brought me back to life.

No, it's just that we've seen this tip of the spear used before.  It's why comics are shit now.  It's why video games are shit now.  It's why TV and movies are shit now.  It's why knitting is shit now.

Kick and scream, raise a ruckus and fucking gate keep the shit out of your hobbies or they won't be your hobbies anymore.

Quote from: rgalex on July 27, 2023, 03:50:42 PM
No, it's just that we've seen this tip of the spear used before.  It's why comics are shit now.  It's why video games are shit now.  It's why TV and movies are shit now.  It's why knitting is shit now.

Kick and scream, raise a ruckus and fucking gate keep the shit out of your hobbies or they won't be your hobbies anymore.

Yeah, I agree, rgalex. I'm really glad for the OSR and other games.

Quote from: Orphan81 on July 27, 2023, 01:57:55 PM
What the fuck is wrong with letting women be Red Sonja?

Dude. Red Sonja is the prime example of the misogyny rampant in fantasy entertainment. They're the nearly-naked, chainmail bikini wearing object of the hideous male gaze and pandering to patriarchal desires for unrealistic, sexy women. I can't believe in 2023 someone actually put forth Red Sonja as anything but a trope to be erased from public view so that People With Front Holes can feel safe in the hobby space.

Do Better.

Quote from: rgalex on July 27, 2023, 03:50:42 PM

Quote from: Orphan81 on July 26, 2023, 09:26:06 PM
I'm fully with you on this one. The amount of cringe I've experienced from folks here who think the removal of gendered language in a rulebook is a sign of the end times has killed me twice and brought me back to life.

No, it's just that we've seen this tip of the spear used before.  It's why comics are shit now.  It's why video games are shit now.  It's why TV and movies are shit now.  It's why knitting is shit now.

Kick and scream, raise a ruckus and fucking gate keep the shit out of your hobbies or they won't be your hobbies anymore.

I just want to know, and I'm not bullshitting you here? Do you believe DCC is going to start putting transgender and nonbinary characters in their rulebooks?

Because if they *Don't* then it won't be the 'tip' of the Spear. It will be them having switched over and stopped the book from being a Sausage fest.

I personally didn't like books that exclusively used "He" in their rulebooks as far back as the early 90s... I keep bringing back Whitewolf as the example, but they were one of the first game companies that switched up the use of "He" and "She"... Beyond that, in the 00s we got to see more books switching to using gender neutral terms such as "Player" and "GM" ect.

This is the thing, are we even sure they're going to put "Theys and thems" everywhere in the book? The original tweet says changing to gender neutral language WHERE applicable... But most of the posts here are talking like this is some Commie, Nazi take over.

So again, at the end of the day... If none of the Gender nonsense shows up in DCC books... We don't start getting Transgender characters and Non-binary characters... and it's just changing the book from having used "He" in every place to something that doesn't assume the reader has a cock and balls...

What then?

All of this yelling, screaming, gnashing of teeth and reactionaryism will have been for NOTHING.  It won't have been a "Tip of the Spear" like I keep seeing here.

Until DCC does that, all they've done has gone back and made sure their main rulebook doesn't assume the reader is a Dude... and that's a good thing... Some amount of Inclusion is *Good*. This isn't arguing "Why can't I play a Trans black soldier in a wheelchair in this World War 2 game?!" This is, "Maybe people other than just dudes are going to read and use this book."

When they start including the gender bullshit, then I'm on board... but all they're doing is correcting a mistake that was behind the times 10 years ago when they first released.

Quote from: rytrasmi on July 27, 2023, 03:01:10 PM
"He" is traditionally gender neutral. My older edition of DCC even says that. Go read about it or something.

I don't have issues with gender neutral language. I have issues with overloading the word "they."

The mage cast fireball on the peasants and they were happy about that.

This sort of example is trivial to generate for any pronoun use. Like,

The mage cast lightning bolt on the peasant and he was happy about that.

Does this prove that "he" doesn't work as a pronoun? No, it just means that pronoun use needs to be done intelligently, regardless of what pattern one uses. Moreover, it's common for a sentence to be ambiguous, with the reader filling in the intended use from surrounding context.

Singular "they" has been used for centuries, as has generic "he". One can debate merits of either, but neither one is insane or deserving of outrage.

Quote from: Orphan81 on July 27, 2023, 04:37:15 PM

Quote from: rgalex on July 27, 2023, 03:50:42 PM

Quote from: Orphan81 on July 26, 2023, 09:26:06 PM
I'm fully with you on this one. The amount of cringe I've experienced from folks here who think the removal of gendered language in a rulebook is a sign of the end times has killed me twice and brought me back to life.

No, it's just that we've seen this tip of the spear used before.  It's why comics are shit now.  It's why video games are shit now.  It's why TV and movies are shit now.  It's why knitting is shit now.

Kick and scream, raise a ruckus and fucking gate keep the shit out of your hobbies or they won't be your hobbies anymore.

I just want to know, and I'm not bullshitting you here? Do you believe DCC is going to start putting transgender and nonbinary characters in their rulebooks?

Because if they *Don't* then it won't be the 'tip' of the Spear. It will be them having switched over and stopped the book from being a Sausage fest.

Serously. What's wrong with having transgender or non-binary characters in an RPG? I'm fine with that so long as it's not ideologically driven.

Quote from: jhkim on July 27, 2023, 04:40:14 PM

Quote from: rytrasmi on July 27, 2023, 03:01:10 PM
"He" is traditionally gender neutral. My older edition of DCC even says that. Go read about it or something.

I don't have issues with gender neutral language. I have issues with overloading the word "they."

The mage cast fireball on the peasants and they were happy about that.

This sort of example is trivial to generate for any pronoun use. Like,

The mage cast lightning bolt on the peasant and he was happy about that.

Does this prove that "he" doesn't work as a pronoun? No, it just means that pronoun use needs to be done intelligently, regardless of what pattern one uses. Moreover, it's common for a sentence to be ambiguous, with the reader filling in the intended use from surrounding context.

Singular "they" has been used for centuries, as has generic "he". One can debate merits of either, but neither one is insane or deserving of outrage.

We can create dueling examples for ages. The simple fact is this: a word that can mean two different things can lead to ambiguity. Yes, you can clarify with context, but it seems to me that other choices make more sense, like not overloading a word in the first place.

Singular "they" has been used for a long time, yes, but mostly to refer to an indeterminate person. As I said upthread, I don't have a problem with that.

Your comments re insane and outrage should be directed to others, perhaps. I just think it's a sad, cynical change to cater to current trends and sell more books. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on July 27, 2023, 04:59:01 PM

Serously. What's wrong with having transgender or non-binary characters in an RPG? I'm fine with that so long as it's not ideologically driven.

Nothing, if they're done right, like you said... But I'm trying to make a good faith argument out of this. Geeky Bugle has a habit of over-reacting to things. Look at the title of this topic, "DCC has fallen prey to the woke". Like DCC is now lost forever, because, *Gasp* they went and made their rulebook a little more inclusive.

My wager is basically this... until "THE MESSAGE" starts being shoved into their books, all of this complaining, and worrying, and talking about how DCC is now an ultra-woke game series is quite ridiculous... and regressive, like actually regressive... Like the guy who was complaining about the Strength Penalty being removed from female characters.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on July 27, 2023, 04:59:01 PM
Serously. What's wrong with having transgender or non-binary characters in an RPG? I'm fine with that so long as it's not ideologically driven.

Let's ask Kevin Seimbedia; who's had changelings as a playable race since the mid-80's; what he thinks about that.

Quote from: rytrasmi on July 27, 2023, 05:05:07 PM

Quote from: jhkim on July 27, 2023, 04:40:14 PM
This sort of example is trivial to generate for any pronoun use. Like,

The mage cast lightning bolt on the peasant and he was happy about that.

Does this prove that "he" doesn't work as a pronoun? No, it just means that pronoun use needs to be done intelligently, regardless of what pattern one uses. Moreover, it's common for a sentence to be ambiguous, with the reader filling in the intended use from surrounding context.

We can create dueling examples for ages. The simple fact is this: a word that can mean two different things can lead to ambiguity. Yes, you can clarify with context, but it seems to me that other choices make more sense, like not overloading a word in the first place.

Singular "they" has been used for a long time, yes, but mostly to refer to an indeterminate person. As I said upthread, I don't have a problem with that.

But singular "they" for an indeterminate person has exactly the same supposed problem that you were complaining about. i.e.

Any mage could cast fireball on the peasants and they would be happy.

So it seems like this is a spurious complaint, since it applies just as much to pronoun use you approve of.

You can still prefer generic "he", but it comes down to "I just like it" rather than "it is objectively better".