Quote from: weirdguy564 on October 16, 2022, 02:28:51 AM
I was wondering what is wrong about over sexualized women in a fantasy?  It's in the name. Fantasy.  As Andy Weir, author of The Martian and Project Hail Mary said, "The protagonist of most great stories is somebody you want to be, or somebody you want to have sex with."

I want the heroes to be cut, ripped, with all their teeth, and maybe even make real life centerfold models and pick up artists envious.  We don't play games like these to be nobodies who never did anything more exiting than travel to the next village once in their life. 

It goes hand in hand with the idea that monster races exist to be villains, so we make them look ugly as well.  A monster is kill on sight because they're dangerous, and disgusting physically.  Example: Minions of Nurgle demons.  Or even classic pig faced orcs in horned helmets who smell like manure and are cannibals.

But I want to team up with an NPC who is a 25 year old barbarian chick in a leopard skin bikini, thigh high boots, metal pauldons, a dragon cross guard great sword that's drawn from her back scabbard somehow, and looks better than real life pinup model Bettie Page. 

I'm there to have fun by going to the extremes of both good and evil, not solve the insecurities some Karen has in real life.

A major problem I see is how the mainstream demographics can't seem to imagine anything but a cliché power fantasy or a postmodern struggle session. The bigger issue is players who can't seem to accept playing what the rest of the table has agreed to, and makes a charater that intentionally doesn't mesh with the world or the rest of the group.

A fun hero for a traditional D&D adventure can be anything from a Conan type like you're describing, to a grizzled veteran who's lost several teeth in fights and survives due to experience and pragmatism (The Hound), to a reluctant nobody that ends up finding the life he's been missing (Bilbo). However, what you absolutely can not successfully play as is an absolute pacifist druid who only wants to talk to happily talk to animals and gets outraged at anyone else who doesn't mirror all her life choices.

now see, just telling him he couldnt play was not strong enough gatekeeping, the people who failed to beat and murder him and make furniture of his bones are responsible for this. you get what you fucking deserve i guess.

oh well, you'll beat the next little shits eyes together when he starts that mess, right?

Quote from: Slipshot762 on October 18, 2022, 06:31:30 AM
now see, just telling him he couldnt play was not strong enough gatekeeping, the people who failed to beat and murder him and make furniture of his bones are responsible for this. you get what you fucking deserve i guess.

oh well, you'll beat the next little shits eyes together when he starts that mess, right?

Damn, where's Elethiomel Zakalwe when you need him?

Greetings!

*Sigh* It's sad watching step-by-step the major company producing D&D becoming such a cesspool. Who they hire and appoint, the products and books they produce, and the messages and narratives that they promote and celebrate in such books and products. And, of course, within the online social media channels, the continued degeneracy and corruption of the hobby as a whole.

It may seem  bit strange to some that I am not bursting forth with napalm-laced rage. I feel the rage, to a point. I have to say that I'm also jaded. We have seen the scum swallow and bake this shit now continuously, step by step, progressively corrupting and polluting the game books and game hobby, every few months, with every new book or supplement, for several years now. Fuck them. They can choke on napalm, and run the fucking game and their ownership into the fucking ground.

Just light up a cigar, and keep on running games my way.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: jhkim on October 15, 2022, 03:26:39 PM

Quote from: weirdguy564 on October 15, 2022, 10:17:35 AM
Anybody else notice the article has both a complaint that women are over-sexualized and that genders are non-binary?

Which is is?  If you want to argue gender descrimination, you need genders to be firmly defined.

That doesn't logically track. For example, I can argue that there has historically been discrimination against black Americans, while at the same time arguing that there has never been a binary division between black people and white Americans - since there have been mixed ancestry people since long before the U.S. was a country.

According to the logic expressed here, I'd have to define a clear binary line between black Americans and white Americans in order to say that blacks were discriminated against. But I don't think that's true. Historically, the people most concerned about defining a firm binary line were racists, such as those who enforced the "one drop" legal standard in laws against miscegenation.

Sex is binary.  Race is not.  Your logic is retarded.

Quote from: Xanadu on October 18, 2022, 05:14:53 AM
A major problem I see is how the mainstream demographics can't seem to imagine anything but a cliché power fantasy or a postmodern struggle session. The bigger issue is players who can't seem to accept playing what the rest of the table has agreed to, and makes a charater that intentionally doesn't mesh with the world or the rest of the group.

A fun hero for a traditional D&D adventure can be anything from a Conan type like you're describing, to a grizzled veteran who's lost several teeth in fights and survives due to experience and pragmatism (The Hound), to a reluctant nobody that ends up finding the life he's been missing (Bilbo). However, what you absolutely can not successfully play as is an absolute pacifist druid who only wants to talk to happily talk to animals and gets outraged at anyone else who doesn't mirror all her life choices.

Most of the recent WotC releases aren't any more pacifist than traditional modules, though, at least from my sampling. They've got pulp-ish fights in a volcano, quests after plane-shredding centipedes, and so forth. There is some change in what the fights look like compared to classic modules, but there is still plenty of combat.

Quote from: DocJones on October 20, 2022, 03:02:19 PM

Quote from: jhkim on October 15, 2022, 03:26:39 PM

Quote from: weirdguy564 on October 15, 2022, 10:17:35 AM
Anybody else notice the article has both a complaint that women are over-sexualized and that genders are non-binary?

Which is is?  If you want to argue gender descrimination, you need genders to be firmly defined.

That doesn't logically track. For example, I can argue that there has historically been discrimination against black Americans, while at the same time arguing that there has never been a binary division between black people and white Americans - since there have been mixed ancestry people since long before the U.S. was a country.

According to the logic expressed here, I'd have to define a clear binary line between black Americans and white Americans in order to say that blacks were discriminated against. But I don't think that's true. Historically, the people most concerned about defining a firm binary line were racists, such as those who enforced the "one drop" legal standard in laws against miscegenation.

Sex is binary.  Race is not.  Your logic is retarded.

This is getting off-topic - but that wasn't your previous claim, and wasn't what I argued.

Logic is about following from premises to conclusions, not about declaring things right or wrong by fiat. Your previous claim wasn't that sex is binary. Your claim it that if gender was not firmly defined, then one cannot argue gender discrimination. For that previous claim to logically hold, you need to start from the hypothetical if condition.

Quote from: Osman Gazi on October 17, 2022, 09:54:46 AM
I'm genuinely curious what people think: is "Wokeism" going to burn out some day, and will WOTC ever return to D&D being just a fun fantasy game?

FWIW, I think that we might be rapidly approaching "Peak Wokeism" in our culture

Normally we'd be in the cooldown phase just before the next wave kick in.

But this time they just keep doubling down and getting ever more wretched at every turn.

At this point there is not going to be any relief before the 2030 wave hits. And we are already seeing hints of what that will be like as the resistance of today become the woke oppression of tomorrow.

Quote from: jhkim on October 20, 2022, 04:28:44 PM

Quote from: DocJones on October 20, 2022, 03:02:19 PM

Quote from: jhkim on October 15, 2022, 03:26:39 PM

Quote from: weirdguy564 on October 15, 2022, 10:17:35 AM
Anybody else notice the article has both a complaint that women are over-sexualized and that genders are non-binary?

Which is is?  If you want to argue gender descrimination, you need genders to be firmly defined.

That doesn't logically track. For example, I can argue that there has historically been discrimination against black Americans, while at the same time arguing that there has never been a binary division between black people and white Americans - since there have been mixed ancestry people since long before the U.S. was a country.

According to the logic expressed here, I'd have to define a clear binary line between black Americans and white Americans in order to say that blacks were discriminated against. But I don't think that's true. Historically, the people most concerned about defining a firm binary line were racists, such as those who enforced the "one drop" legal standard in laws against miscegenation.

Sex is binary.  Race is not.  Your logic is retarded.

This is getting off-topic - but that wasn't your previous claim, and wasn't what I argued.

Logic is about following from premises to conclusions, not about declaring things right or wrong by fiat. Your previous claim wasn't that sex is binary. Your claim it that if gender was not firmly defined, then one cannot argue gender discrimination. For that previous claim to logically hold, you need to start from the hypothetical if condition.

I did not make any previous claim since it was my only post on this thread.

Quote from: DocJones on October 22, 2022, 09:29:43 AM

Quote from: jhkim on October 20, 2022, 04:28:44 PM

Quote from: DocJones on October 20, 2022, 03:02:19 PM

Quote from: jhkim on October 15, 2022, 03:26:39 PM

Quote from: weirdguy564 on October 15, 2022, 10:17:35 AM
Anybody else notice the article has both a complaint that women are over-sexualized and that genders are non-binary?

Which is is?  If you want to argue gender descrimination, you need genders to be firmly defined.

That doesn't logically track. For example, I can argue that there has historically been discrimination against black Americans, while at the same time arguing that there has never been a binary division between black people and white Americans - since there have been mixed ancestry people since long before the U.S. was a country.

According to the logic expressed here, I'd have to define a clear binary line between black Americans and white Americans in order to say that blacks were discriminated against. But I don't think that's true. Historically, the people most concerned about defining a firm binary line were racists, such as those who enforced the "one drop" legal standard in laws against miscegenation.

Sex is binary.  Race is not.  Your logic is retarded.

This is getting off-topic - but that wasn't your previous claim, and wasn't what I argued.

Logic is about following from premises to conclusions, not about declaring things right or wrong by fiat. Your previous claim wasn't that sex is binary. Your claim it that if gender was not firmly defined, then one cannot argue gender discrimination. For that previous claim to logically hold, you need to start from the hypothetical if condition.

I did not make any previous claim since it was my only post on this thread.

Whoops. Sorry, DocJones. I mistook your response as if it came from weirdguy564, whom I was responding to. To rephrase that,

weirdguy564's claim was that if gender was not firmly defined, then one cannot argue gender discrimination. I replied to that this didn't logically follow. I claimed that a lack of firm definitions doesn't mean that discrimination can't exist, and illustrated the point. This is off-topic from RPGs, though.

Quote from: Xanadu on October 18, 2022, 05:14:53 AM

Quote from: weirdguy564 on October 16, 2022, 02:28:51 AM
I was wondering what is wrong about over sexualized women in a fantasy?  It's in the name. Fantasy.  As Andy Weir, author of The Martian and Project Hail Mary said, "The protagonist of most great stories is somebody you want to be, or somebody you want to have sex with."

I want the heroes to be cut, ripped, with all their teeth, and maybe even make real life centerfold models and pick up artists envious.  We don't play games like these to be nobodies who never did anything more exiting than travel to the next village once in their life. 

It goes hand in hand with the idea that monster races exist to be villains, so we make them look ugly as well.  A monster is kill on sight because they're dangerous, and disgusting physically.  Example: Minions of Nurgle demons.  Or even classic pig faced orcs in horned helmets who smell like manure and are cannibals.

But I want to team up with an NPC who is a 25 year old barbarian chick in a leopard skin bikini, thigh high boots, metal pauldons, a dragon cross guard great sword that's drawn from her back scabbard somehow, and looks better than real life pinup model Bettie Page. 

I'm there to have fun by going to the extremes of both good and evil, not solve the insecurities some Karen has in real life.

A major problem I see is how the mainstream demographics can't seem to imagine anything but a cliché power fantasy or a postmodern struggle session. The bigger issue is players who can't seem to accept playing what the rest of the table has agreed to, and makes a charater that intentionally doesn't mesh with the world or the rest of the group.

A fun hero for a traditional D&D adventure can be anything from a Conan type like you're describing, to a grizzled veteran who's lost several teeth in fights and survives due to experience and pragmatism (The Hound), to a reluctant nobody that ends up finding the life he's been missing (Bilbo). However, what you absolutely can not successfully play as is an absolute pacifist druid who only wants to talk to happily talk to animals and gets outraged at anyone else who doesn't mirror all her life choices.

I've had that hippy druid in my party, as players were dying he was casting druidcraft making flowers bloom on the corpses of player or foe alike.  Real fun guy to have around.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on October 23, 2022, 03:12:56 AM
I've had that hippy druid in my party, as players were dying he was casting druidcraft making flowers bloom on the corpses of player or foe alike.  Real fun guy to have around.

Presuming the party survived, I hope their next action was to hack that druid into bits while telling them they were just making fertilizer to keep those flowers growing.

Greetings!

Yeah, it doesn't require weird races to be out-of-place. Even a Human character, with some inappropriate profession, religion, philosophy, or ideology, can be a really poor fit for the rest o the group. Not just a poor fit--but just entirely unworkable and inappropriate.

Any kind of fucking "Pacifist" Character. Come on. The DM needs to pull their head out o their ass and grab their own balls and tell such a stupid player NO. NO pacifist hippy druids.

Once, I had a dumb player want to play a genteel, urban schlub with a Rapier. I told him he would die out on the wastes. The second session with his character he was overwhelmed by Beastmen, and a heavily armoured Chaos Warrior brought him down with his Greatsword. The Beastmen proceeded to rip him apart, roast him over the bonfire and devoured him.

Inappropriate armour. Inappropriate weaponry. Inappropriate Character Type. I allowed him to learn the hard way. In future campaigns, I skipped the harsh lessons for the dumber players and just said NO. NO to A, B, C, or D. Whatever. Enforce the standards of the campaign, and of the group.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I would like to note that the pacifist option in 3E's Book of Exalted Deeds pretty much comes with big disclaimers about making DAMN SURE your GM and your party are okay with it.

It's one thing to play a party face, but if you have no capacity to deal when the arrows and spells start flying, why are you adventuring?

Quote from: Ghostmaker on October 23, 2022, 09:21:56 PM
I would like to note that the pacifist option in 3E's Book of Exalted Deeds pretty much comes with big disclaimers about making DAMN SURE your GM and your party are okay with it.

It's one thing to play a party face, but if you have no capacity to deal when the arrows and spells start flying, why are you adventuring?

That's one thing I appreciated from 4E theorycrafting that I appreciated enough to incorporate into my own system... the so-called "Princess Build"; a character with no direct attacks, but did have the ability to grant attacks to their allies (and buff those attacks as well) along with the typical leader role healing (fluffed as boosting morale/will to keep going) and removing debuffs.

If you want to play a pacifist in my system and not want to earn the ire of your party, you pick the Mastermind* class (and can get non-combat magic if desired through your background) so you aren't fighting, but are helping your allies to fight better.

*they were originally called the Sidekick class as that was often what their position would be in an actual story, the one who never does well in a fight, but creates openings for their more competent allies and inspires them when they're at their lowest.

Quote from: SHARK on October 23, 2022, 04:56:47 PM
Any kind of fucking "Pacifist" Character. Come on. The DM needs to pull their head out o their ass and grab their own balls and tell such a stupid player NO. NO pacifist hippy druids.

Not really on the main topic here, but I'm going to quibble with this point.  Back in the day, I wrote a bunch of specialist clerics for my 2E setting, and one of them was pretty much a pacifist.  I think they might have been allowed to defend themselves in limited fashion if attacked, but that was it.  They had weak physical combat abilities (of course), and no offensive spells, but compensated with good buffs, vastly improved healing, and a permanent sanctuary spell.

Only one player ever rolled one, but his character was an awesome combat medic.  He was always in the thick of things, helping his comrades.  He was really brave too – he'd step between enemies and injured PCs to stop an enemy attack, praying (  ) that his sanctuary would hold.  It would mostly work, but I recall that he very nearly died that way when got between a BBEG and a downed PC and got skewered by a poisoned spear for his trouble after the BBEG made his save.

I guess the point is that almost any concept can work, but only if the player is not going to be an idiot about how to use it.