Quote from: jhkim on July 27, 2023, 06:24:04 PM

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".

YOU write a poor example to show that I'M inconsistent? That's YOUR example. Leave me out of your argument with your straw man.

Quote from: Orphan81 on July 27, 2023, 05:11:31 PM

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.

And I disagree. We've seen how the woke have established themselves in entertainment, education, government, hobbies including goddamn fucking knitting. The reason people react the way they do here is because of a couple of decades of woke assholes leveraging their social power to make idiotic demands and changes while people just sat there and let it happen.



If pushing back means a little hyperbole from time to time, I can live with that.

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.

I basically agree with this. IMO there's a big difference between
(a) protagonist/PC & rare exceptional characters being female (or other unusual characteristic eg children or disabled) &
(b) Worldbuilding where half or more the mundane NPCs have what should be an unusual characteristic, like female blacksmiths & soldiers.

The former does not deny that Red Sonja or Belit is unusual, an exception. Being exceptional is already normal for fantasy heroes. The latter does deny it and is often motivated by a desire to deny reality about sex differences.

Quote from: jhkim on July 27, 2023, 06:24:04 PM

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".

Functionally they are identical, but I see one important difference.  Generic "he" is just organic development of the language.  Generic "they" as currently used is an attempt by a group to coerce the rest of the population into changing how they think.  Very 1984.  I do have a problem with that.

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.

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.

Honest answer, I don't know.  Maybe. It wouldn't surprise me at this point.

Here is the thing.  Yep, it's a 10+ year old convention that lots of other companies switched to already.  So why is DCC doing it now?

You may have the best idea for a book/comic/video game/tv show/etc and you may just so happen to want to have a female lead in it.  Or a black lead.  Or a black cripple in a wheelchair who loves to spew racist shit left and right.  I can't assume you made that choice because you thought it was good for the story or just because.  I have to assume it's because you are virtue signaling or trying to, in some way, CYA against the leftist mob.

The identity politics crowd have poisoned the well so thoroughly that it is nearly impossible to take anything in good faith anymore. 

Quote from: Mishihari on July 28, 2023, 04:52:25 AM

Quote from: jhkim on July 27, 2023, 06:24:04 PM
You can still prefer generic "he", but it comes down to "I just like it" rather than "it is objectively better".

Functionally they are identical, but I see one important difference.  Generic "he" is just organic development of the language.  Generic "they" as currently used is an attempt by a group to coerce the rest of the population into changing how they think.  Very 1984.  I do have a problem with that.

Development of language is always political, and always been debated. In elementary school in the 1970s, I was taught that generic "he" was the only proper grammar. That is very much 1984 indoctrination of children.

Later in childhood, I read classic authors like Jane Austen, Lewis Carroll, and Charles Dickens - and I was exposed to more of singular "they". However, I still didn't realize what had happened until adulthood and I encountered debates around pronouns.

Singular "they" has always been around as colloquial, but in the late 19th and early 20th century, there was a deliberate effort by some to push generic "he" as the only proper grammar. Earlier debates took place in person and newspapers rather than over Twitter, so they were slower, but they still happened. For example, in 1885 this was a newspaper column arguing against new proposed gender-neutral pronoun "thon", in part by noting that singular "they" was grammatical.

QuoteIt is not necessary for any right-minded school-teacher to say "Everybody must get his or her lessons perfect today." It would be much better to say, " The pupils must be perfect in their lessons to-day," or better still, to drop into the colloquial style, "Everyone should be perfect in their lessons to-day." There is nothing awkward of ungrammatical in this, so far as the construction of English is concerned. It is ungrammatical when measured by the Latin method--but what has Latin grammar to do with the English tongue?

https://debaron.web.illinois.edu/essays/singular_they_Feb_1885.pdf

The point being that the debate has always been around. The organic approach is for there to be debate, and for writers to choose which pronouns they prefer.

(I disagree with schoolteachers now who mark generic "he" as wrong in student writing. But writers choosing to use singular "they" is organic language development.)

Quote from: Orphan81 on July 27, 2023, 05:11:31 PM
and regressive, like actually regressive... Like the guy who was complaining about the Strength Penalty being removed from female characters.

Humans are sexually dimorphic, and men are way stronger than women, at both the average, and the extremes. Olympic champion women lift weights that gym bros do for fun.

Same goes for running speed, endurance, pain tolerance, aggression, on and on it goes.

This is the point where you handwave this away for games because magic and wizards. Except the humans in fantasy CLEARLY have the exact same sexual dimorphism we do, and all quasi-medieval fantasy, up until 5 fucking minutes ago expressed this with female warriors and leaders being rare exceptions.

Regressive? Oh no, women can still be incredibly strong, but ever so slightly less so than men? Oh the huge manatee, this evil cannot stand! I'll go a step further, on the old strength score, female characters should have been capped at a flat 18, not 18(50). 18 would already be fantastical for females. Toss them a Cha mod for men being stupid around women.

If a Halfling could be penalized for strength because they're no as strong as humans, why not women? And for the same reasons.

Quote from: Grognard GM on July 28, 2023, 01:10:23 PM

Quote from: Orphan81 on July 27, 2023, 05:11:31 PM
and regressive, like actually regressive... Like the guy who was complaining about the Strength Penalty being removed from female characters.

Humans are sexually dimorphic, and men are way stronger than women, at both the average, and the extremes. Olympic champion women lift weights that gym bros do for fun.

Same goes for running speed, endurance, pain tolerance, aggression, on and on it goes.

This is the point where you handwave this away for games because magic and wizards. Except the humans in fantasy CLEARLY have the exact same sexual dimorphism we do, and all quasi-medieval fantasy, up until 5 fucking minutes ago expressed this with female warriors and leaders being rare exceptions.

Regressive? Oh no, women can still be incredibly strong, but ever so slightly less so than men? Oh the huge manatee, this evil cannot stand! I'll go a step further, on the old strength score, female characters should have been capped at a flat 18, not 18(50). 18 would already be fantastical for females. Toss them a Cha mod for men being stupid around women.

If a Halfling could be penalized for strength because they're no as strong as humans, why not women? And for the same reasons.

Because women want to play role playing games too and not be penalized for playing their native Sex.

And if you're interested in women being in the hobby, then you're not going to penalize them for playing make believe versions of themselves that are capable of kicking ass.

The type of behavior that says "women get a strength penalty in the elf game but a charisma bonus around men because they're stupid" is fucking creepy dude.

The worse kind of actually sexist thought. "Yeah you can't be as strong as my character but you can seduce men with your extra Charisma"

Because that's not playing into the WORST FUCKING CREEPY GAMER stereotypes ever.

Orphan81, as S'mon notes, there is a difference between what is normal for the world and what is normal for PCs.

Quote from: S'mon on July 28, 2023, 03:06:08 AM

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.

I basically agree with this. IMO there's a big difference between
(a) protagonist/PC & rare exceptional characters being female (or other unusual characteristic eg children or disabled) &
(b) Worldbuilding where half or more the mundane NPCs have what should be an unusual characteristic, like female blacksmiths & soldiers.

The former does not deny that Red Sonja or Belit is unusual, an exception. Being exceptional is already normal for fantasy heroes. The latter does deny it and is often motivated by a desire to deny reality about sex differences.

My current campaign is (a) because it's emulating high fantasy of a traditional culture. Among NPCs, it's more common for women to be wizards - and it's more common for men to be fighters. (My campaign is emulating Incan culture, which makes a big deal out of gender roles.)

That said, I don't think that having amazonian armies in one's fantasy RPG world is necessarily a sign of denying reality. I mean, it's a frickin fantasy world. Having some amazonian armies of women soldiers is completely in keeping with plenty of fantasy - from Greek myth onwards.

*yawn*

Quote from: Orphan81 on July 28, 2023, 06:56:48 PM

Quote from: Grognard GM on July 28, 2023, 01:10:23 PM

Quote from: Orphan81 on July 27, 2023, 05:11:31 PM
and regressive, like actually regressive... Like the guy who was complaining about the Strength Penalty being removed from female characters.

Humans are sexually dimorphic, and men are way stronger than women, at both the average, and the extremes. Olympic champion women lift weights that gym bros do for fun.

Same goes for running speed, endurance, pain tolerance, aggression, on and on it goes.

This is the point where you handwave this away for games because magic and wizards. Except the humans in fantasy CLEARLY have the exact same sexual dimorphism we do, and all quasi-medieval fantasy, up until 5 fucking minutes ago expressed this with female warriors and leaders being rare exceptions.

Regressive? Oh no, women can still be incredibly strong, but ever so slightly less so than men? Oh the huge manatee, this evil cannot stand! I'll go a step further, on the old strength score, female characters should have been capped at a flat 18, not 18(50). 18 would already be fantastical for females. Toss them a Cha mod for men being stupid around women.

If a Halfling could be penalized for strength because they're no as strong as humans, why not women? And for the same reasons.

Because women want to play role playing games too and not be penalized for playing their native Sex.

And if you're interested in women being in the hobby, then you're not going to penalize them for playing make believe versions of themselves that are capable of kicking ass.

The type of behavior that says "women get a strength penalty in the elf game but a charisma bonus around men because they're stupid" is fucking creepy dude.

The worse kind of actually sexist thought. "Yeah you can't be as strong as my character but you can seduce men with your extra Charisma"

Because that's not playing into the WORST FUCKING CREEPY GAMER stereotypes ever.

But you're totally not an SJW right?

To bring the conversation back to the posts theme:

You yourself proved we're correct when you said changing it was to make it "more inclusive" (again proving you're a fucking SJW), women have been playing the game perfectly fine without making changes to appease the extreme left woketards.

NOBODY can point to a slaes increase in a game AFTER they made those changes, I wonder why?

Now back to your BS:

If Grognard GM wants to GM a game where women are penalized in STR and given a bonus in CHA citing realism you can only do two things:

Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Or invoke "because Dragons!" and then Reeeeeeeeeeee

I think you managed to do both.

Quote from: Orphan81 on July 28, 2023, 06:56:48 PM

Quote from: Grognard GM on July 28, 2023, 01:10:23 PM

Quote from: Orphan81 on July 27, 2023, 05:11:31 PM
and regressive, like actually regressive... Like the guy who was complaining about the Strength Penalty being removed from female characters.

Humans are sexually dimorphic, and men are way stronger than women, at both the average, and the extremes. Olympic champion women lift weights that gym bros do for fun.

Same goes for running speed, endurance, pain tolerance, aggression, on and on it goes.

This is the point where you handwave this away for games because magic and wizards. Except the humans in fantasy CLEARLY have the exact same sexual dimorphism we do, and all quasi-medieval fantasy, up until 5 fucking minutes ago expressed this with female warriors and leaders being rare exceptions.

Regressive? Oh no, women can still be incredibly strong, but ever so slightly less so than men? Oh the huge manatee, this evil cannot stand! I'll go a step further, on the old strength score, female characters should have been capped at a flat 18, not 18(50). 18 would already be fantastical for females. Toss them a Cha mod for men being stupid around women.

If a Halfling could be penalized for strength because they're no as strong as humans, why not women? And for the same reasons.

Because women want to play role playing games too and not be penalized for playing their native Sex.

And if you're interested in women being in the hobby, then you're not going to penalize them for playing make believe versions of themselves that are capable of kicking ass.

The type of behavior that says "women get a strength penalty in the elf game but a charisma bonus around men because they're stupid" is fucking creepy dude.

The worse kind of actually sexist thought. "Yeah you can't be as strong as my character but you can seduce men with your extra Charisma"

Because that's not playing into the WORST FUCKING CREEPY GAMER stereotypes ever.

These people that supposedly call you a Nazi, are they wearing hammer and sickle t-shirts? Because I can't think of anyone else that would see your pearl clutching white knighting and think you were anything but far-left. You may not be (or at least think you're not) Woke, but you're a male feminist proto-wokester.

Calling something regressive or creepy doesn't make it so, even if you repeat yourself with ALL CAPS. If Halflings have a lower Str cap than a man because they're smaller and weaker, then having the same for a female human is literally no different, yet people still play halflings. Your entire outrage is ideological.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 28, 2023, 10:15:28 PM
You yourself proved we're correct when you said changing it was to make it "more inclusive" (again proving you're a fucking SJW), women have been playing the game perfectly fine without making changes to appease the extreme left woketards.

This deserved repeating. All this shit is not to make the game inclusive to women. It's to make the game exclusive to anyone not of the woke ideology.

As usual, you have to understand what the terminology is being twisted for.

Quote from: jhkim on July 28, 2023, 07:50:38 PM
That said, I don't think that having amazonian armies in one's fantasy RPG world is necessarily a sign of denying reality. I mean, it's a frickin fantasy world. Having some amazonian armies of women soldiers is completely in keeping with plenty of fantasy - from Greek myth onwards.

I have Amazons in my Wilderlands of High Fantasy campaigns too, but they're clearly a fantasy race. That's very old school, agreed.

I also run new school Odyssey of the Dragonlords where Amazon is a 'culture' not a race, Amazons there can be of any race although they all live on one big island. It can be put down to magic but is more of a stretch than having Amazons be a particular unusual race.

I think what is most intrusive is when the baseline culture in the standard-medieval fantasy setting has the Paizo style gender balance thing with no examination or explanation.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 28, 2023, 10:15:28 PM

But you're totally not an SJW right?

To bring the conversation back to the posts theme:

You yourself proved we're correct when you said changing it was to make it "more inclusive" (again proving you're a fucking SJW), women have been playing the game perfectly fine without making changes to appease the extreme left woketards.

NOBODY can point to a slaes increase in a game AFTER they made those changes, I wonder why?

Now back to your BS:

If Grognard GM wants to GM a game where women are penalized in STR and given a bonus in CHA citing realism you can only do two things:

Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Or invoke "because Dragons!" and then Reeeeeeeeeeee

I think you managed to do both.

No, I'm not. I just haven't been in an echo chamber as long as you have, that something that's been standard for almost 40 years now (Equal stats between men and women) doesn't sound fucking RADICAL to me. This is one of the reasons we're losing the culture war.

Quote from: Grognard GM on July 28, 2023, 10:26:37 PM


These people that supposedly call you a Nazi, are they wearing hammer and sickle t-shirts? Because I can't think of anyone else that would see your pearl clutching white knighting and think you were anything but far-left. You may not be (or at least think you're not) Woke, but you're a male feminist proto-wokester.

Calling something regressive or creepy doesn't make it so, even if you repeat yourself with ALL CAPS. If Halflings have a lower Str cap than a man because they're smaller and weaker, then having the same for a female human is literally no different, yet people still play halflings. Your entire outrage is ideological.

White Knighting is now pointing out Strength Penalties for female characters is backwards and regressive huh? Pearl Clutching too? Jesus, this is exactly the kind of shit Wizards of the Coast and other game companies use to justify the changes they make. Because they can point to guys like you who want actual sexism in their games and go "This is why we need to push even further Left". Beyond the fact it's also just *BAD* game design too.

I mean fucking A, Red Sonja shows up in Marvel Comics in the 1973, but nevermind that, you're so angry at SJWs you want to prevent characters like her from even being made anymore.

That's backwards and purely ideological.