Quote from: Jaeger on May 21, 2024, 04:33:36 PMTo bring this back to RPG's:

How does having gay NPC's presented as a good and normal thing hurt the product?

1: It's gross. Which is the healthy, natural, and normal response.

2: Because Wotc is openly trying to normalize an Unnatural Sin as a good and acceptable lifestyle.

So it is only natural that I would object to having content in my game books whose explicit purpose is to normalize an unnatural sinful lifestyle as something normal and good, when it most certainly is neither.

That quote selected text thing is nice!

So, you're willing to let your homophobia fly freely and that's your sole objection for point 1.

As for point 2, it's not WotC trying to normalize anything. Much of modern society has already accepted this behavior as normal, aside from neanderthals like yourself. Well, we all know how the neanderthals are doing these days. You might want to call Geico and see if they have a preserve for your people.

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 21, 2024, 03:40:32 PMYou're not arguing against something brand new here. The definition was given from 1972 (and arguably as early as 1965). You've had more than a half-century to come to terms with it.

I'm aware it's not new.  Being old doesn't make something correct.  The term is a lie.  It's incorrect.  I'm not "coming to terms" with a lie, because that would be dumb.  It's never gonna be right, no matter how many people are shot over the lie, no matter how many dictionaries parrot the lie, no matter how many politicians smile and repeat the lie.

Being opposed to a political agenda isn't a "phobia".  Having opinions about morality isn't a "phobia".  If anyone wanted to make up a neutral word for those terms so that they could be discussed, they are welcome to do so, but it wouldn't involve the word "phobia". The entire purpose of the word wouldn't be to attack those described with it. "Homophobic" is a slur.

Here's an example.  Lets say I define everyone who disagrees with me on anything as "truthophobic".  I somehow force your dictionaries to agree with me and print my definition.

I do this today, or I do this tomorrow, or I do this in 1965.  Does the time I did it matter?  How much force must someone apply or threaten before they become correct?  If I have the power to cause stars to go nova simply with my thoughts, how many stars would I need to destroy before one plus one equals three?  Answer quick, truthophobe!

Consensus, tradition, force- none of these make something true.

Quote from: Venka on May 21, 2024, 06:00:53 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 21, 2024, 03:40:32 PMYou're not arguing against something brand new here. The definition was given from 1972 (and arguably as early as 1965). You've had more than a half-century to come to terms with it.

I'm aware it's not new.  Being old doesn't make something correct.  The term is a lie.  It's incorrect.  I'm not "coming to terms" with a lie, because that would be dumb.  It's never gonna be right, no matter how many people are shot over the lie, no matter how many dictionaries parrot the lie, no matter how many politicians smile and repeat the lie.

Being opposed to a political agenda isn't a "phobia".  Having opinions about morality isn't a "phobia".  If anyone wanted to make up a neutral word for those terms so that they could be discussed, they are welcome to do so, but it wouldn't involve the word "phobia". The entire purpose of the word wouldn't be to attack those described with it. "Homophobic" is a slur.

Here's an example.  Lets say I define everyone who disagrees with me on anything as "truthophobic".  I somehow force your dictionaries to agree with me and print my definition.

I do this today, or I do this tomorrow, or I do this in 1965.  Does the time I did it matter?  How much force must someone apply or threaten before they become correct?  If I have the power to cause stars to go nova simply with my thoughts, how many stars would I need to destroy before one plus one equals three?  Answer quick, truthophobe!

Consensus, tradition, force- none of these make something true.

You are being deliberately obtuse. The world today uses the term homophobic as I have described. You are not "correct" to deny this reality.

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 21, 2024, 05:02:37 PMThat quote selected text thing is nice!

So, you're willing to let your homophobia fly freely and that's your sole objection for point 1.

As for point 2, it's not WotC trying to normalize anything. Much of modern society has already accepted this behavior as normal, aside from neanderthals like yourself. Well, we all know how the neanderthals are doing these days. You might want to call Geico and see if they have a preserve for your people.

Imagine believing that societies and empires of the past haven't reached similar levels of immoral decadence, normalizing abnormal sexual behavior, before collapsing, then reality and hardship kicks in and the people return to normal.

I, for one, am looking forward to WotC rebooting The Scourge of the Slavelords in the Greyhawk setting, from a woke perspective.

Quote from: Thor's Nads on May 21, 2024, 08:36:19 PMImagine believing that societies and empires of the past haven't reached similar levels of immoral decadence, normalizing abnormal sexual behavior, before collapsing, then reality and hardship kicks in and the people return to normal.

These are the same people -- or at least, ideologically adjacent to them -- who think they will be the ones to make communism work, because "real communism has never been tried before," or whatever other pathetic excuse they're pushing these days.

Quote from: Jaeger on May 21, 2024, 04:33:36 PMChristianity completely rejects homosexual behavior as it is an Unnatural Sin.

Thus, by your own standards, Christianity is "homophobic"

Quote from: Jaeger on May 21, 2024, 04:33:36 PMTo bring this back to RPG's:

How does having gay NPC's presented as a good and normal thing hurt the product?

1: It's gross. Which is the healthy, natural, and normal response.

2: Because Wotc is openly trying to normalize an Unnatural Sin as a good and acceptable lifestyle.

Jaeger -- I'm not sure about your point regarding Christianity. Do you think that D&D should only portray strict Christian virtues in the normal and heroic people portrayed. i.e. Only married couples in relationships, good heroes still loving their enemies, turning the other cheek and devoting themselves to peace-making, giving 10% of their money to the poor, etc.

I consider myself a Christian, but I'll go on record that I had sex with my wife long before we were married. That is clearly described as sin, but I don't lose any sleep over it.

I tend to have games that are generally in line with my values, but that doesn't mean my fictional worlds all have to conform to Christian laws. I can have fictional pagan gods and more, because it's just a frickin game.

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 21, 2024, 12:54:21 AM

Quote from: Omega on May 21, 2024, 12:36:40 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 20, 2024, 10:59:33 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on May 20, 2024, 10:53:11 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 20, 2024, 09:54:05 PMHaving a married gay couple does not make a setting "look like a combination of Downtown L.A., and an SF pride parade" unless you already have a very warped view of reality.

Disgust is not fear, but there are close associations in how the brain processes the two. However, that's a moot point because the common use of the term homophobia is not specifically tied to fear, but to a range of prejudicial behaviors against homosexuals. And yes, by your own words, you appear quite homophobic to me. Beyond that, you seem to be the one with a fixation on beig hateful.

Out of curiosity, is there any objection to a married gay couple in a D&D module that you would accept as not being homophobic and/or "hateful"?

Probably not, but what's your hypothetical objection? I'm willing to discuss it.

I object when it is just there to check a box on a score card. Its fucking demeaning.

I object when it is there to push a false agenda. Also demeaning.

I object when it is just a meaningless insertion.

I object when it is a ham-handed insertion.

If you think any of that makes me a homophobe then maybe you need to look in a mirror.

How many LGBTQ people have you spoken to about this (FWIW, I've only spoken to three in person)? How do they view it? From your perspective, it is demeaning or meaningless, but you are not likely to be one of the ones they are doing it for. Even taking a cynical view, they (the writers) are doing it for themselves, and yet it still doesn't meaningfully damage the "D&D-ness" of the product. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things I don't care for in D&D (any version), but the presence of a married gay couple is nowhere on my list because it doesn't alter the gameplay one bit.

Honestly, if your answer is "probably not", then the conversation is probably not worth having, but what the hell? Someone else might find it engaging.

My way of looking at the issue is broadly similar to SHARK's, but I'd phrase most of the points differently for greater nuance. Also, I'm not a Christian, so the moral questions probably operate differently for me.

I have a multiple question test I apply to any kind of diversity inserted into a product where it seems not to belong. A tickmark in any of the boxes is good grounds to consider a work objectionable, but the severity of each violation should be considered. 

First, general questions:
1) Does it violate the setting? I.e., is the insertion so incongruous  or implausible within the established tone, time, place, etc. that it "bumps" the reader, thereby harming immersion and worsening the work.

2) What motivated this? Sometimes the motivation is spiteful, which obviously diminishes the product. More often the motive is propagandistic and/or corporate. Both propaganda and obvious corporate interference can have the same "bumping" effect that violating the setting does, and should generally be disdained as being without artistic merit.

Then there are specific-case questions:
3. Does it violate the artistic intent of the original creator? This one is unique to intellectual properties that have been handed off to new authors due to corporate or business transactions, but I absolutely hate the continual disrespect of artists by corporate actors who have no right to do so other than working for a company which has purchased the legal ownership of the work.

4. At whom is this targeted? This is almost, but not entirely, exclusive to the insertion of sexual issues or content into a work. There are very good reasons to be cautious with the pace and context in which children and adolescents are exposed to sexual content during their development.

All of these are outside of the consideration of pure personal preference, of course. That's a thorny question all on its own. I'm not going to be the guy who says everyone has to like what I like, but I'm also Not going to pretend that someone's taste in fiction doesn't frequently say quite a lot about their character. At the end of the day, you can't argue someone out of their personal tastes, and there isn't much point in a conversation where "I like it" is countered with "I don't". The point of the above test is to have a way of going beyond personal taste and having some semi-objective criteria to discuss.

A particular work can pass all of the above tests and still be something I don't like. The play/film "Rent" is the example that popped into my mind. I absolutely hated it, but it's an original work, clearly targeted at adults, and all of the content included in it fits the setting. You could potentially argue that its intent is propagandistic, but I think it's equally likely that was a story the writer just wanted to tell, and the political point-making was incidental.

Another separate issue is what moral/message/theme (if any) is a work pushing? This isn't a diversity question at all, but if a work is pushing a despicable moral stance, then in most cases it should be objected to in the strongest possible terms. I don't really remember "Rent" pushing much in the way of a moral or message other than "Isn't AIDs sad?", but it's been a very, very long time since I saw it.

Either way, I still hate "Rent", but I'm mostly content to write that hatred off as owing to it running thoroughly counter to my personal tastes.

Quote from: ForgottenF on May 21, 2024, 09:57:40 PMI have a multiple question test I apply to any kind of diversity inserted into a product where it seems not to belong.

If you're going to be objective on your 4 questions, you first need to back up and figure out why it "seems not to belong" and do so objectively.

Quote from: ForgottenF on May 21, 2024, 09:57:40 PM1) Does it violate the setting? I.e., is the insertion so incongruous  or implausible within the established tone, time, place, etc. that it "bumps" the reader, thereby harming immersion and worsening the work.

This part I can get behind to some degree, but I only really apply it to historical (or, to a lesser degree, pseudo-historical) settings. If you're talking about something like Lion & Dragon, then the point is to play up the historical accurracy. If you're playing L5R, the point is to play up the "sorta-but-not-entirely-mystic/feudal-Japan," but this gives more room than the first example. If you're playing Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk D&D, then the barriers are all but non-existent in my eyes as damn near anything can fit into these settings.

Quote from: ForgottenF on May 21, 2024, 09:57:40 PM2) What motivated this? Sometimes the motivation is spiteful, which obviously diminishes the product. More often the motive is propagandistic and/or corporate. Both propaganda and obvious corporate interference can have the same "bumping" effect that violating the setting does, and should generally be disdained as being without artistic merit.

This one doesn't have much pull with me. Inclusion of people and their ideas is inherently a good thing. Gatekeeping is the path of the asshole, and this includes gatekeeping against LGBTQ representation in fantasy worlds.

Quote from: ForgottenF on May 21, 2024, 09:57:40 PM3. Does it violate the artistic intent of the original creator? This one is unique to intellectual properties that have been handed off to new authors due to corporate or business transactions, but I absolutely hate the continual disrespect of artists by corporate actors who have no right to do so other than working for a company which has purchased the legal ownership of the work.

This means almost nothing to me. The original version belongs to the original creator, not necessarily everything that comes from it later.  I do appreciate the work put in by originators, but new versions need to be free to take new paths. As an example, consider that the Old Testament largely belongs to Jews, but they don't get a claim on Christian Bibles that pick up on their material and go on from there. As for D&D, Greyhawk in particular, the "artistic intent" was to have a setting for all those dungeons to occupy for those that liked more continuity in their D&D. The new version will certainly have that goal.

Quote from: ForgottenF on May 21, 2024, 09:57:40 PM4. At whom is this targeted? This is almost, but not entirely, exclusive to the insertion of sexual issues or content into a work. There are very good reasons to be cautious with the pace and context in which children and adolescents are exposed to sexual content during their development.

I am willing to agree on this point, but mostly when it comes to obscenity and overtly sexualized materials. WotC has not done this, for either heterosexual or homosexual relationships. If they did, I would be opposed to either/both appearing in general release game books. I do not think that anyone capable of reading and understanding a D&D Players Handbook is too young/immature to handle the idea of a homosexual couple that appear fully clothed going about their daily work.

Quote from: ForgottenF on May 21, 2024, 09:57:40 PMAll of these are outside of the consideration of pure personal preference, of course. That's a thorny question all on its own. I'm not going to be the guy who says everyone has to like what I like, but I'm also Not going to pretend that someone's taste in fiction doesn't frequently say quite a lot about their character. At the end of the day, you can't argue someone out of their personal tastes, and there isn't much point in a conversation where "I like it" is countered with "I don't". The point of the above test is to have a way of going beyond personal taste and having some semi-objective criteria to discuss.

This goes back to answering how you ojectively determine what constitutes "any kind of diversity inserted into a product where it seems not to belong." Until you can do so, it does indeed seem as though it's being done entirely from your "pure personal preferences."

Quote from: ForgottenF on May 21, 2024, 09:57:40 PMEither way, I still hate "Rent"

Me too.

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 21, 2024, 11:04:31 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on May 21, 2024, 09:57:40 PMI have a multiple question test I apply to any kind of diversity inserted into a product where it seems not to belong.

If you're going to be objective on your 4 questions, you first need to back up and figure out why it "seems not to belong" and do so objectively.

There's a reason I said "semi-objective" above. Any attempt at a purely objective standard when discussing either art or morals is always going to be a dead end. We're dealing with intangibles here, so an element of intuition will always be involved. Anyone who tells you otherwise is engaging in sophistry, usually because they're trying to score rhetorical points or make themselves look smarter than you. Engaging in this kind of conversation in anything approaching good faith requires a willingness to try and see the other person's point of view, or at minimum a willingness to grant their intuitions the benefit of the doubt.

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 21, 2024, 11:04:31 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on May 21, 2024, 09:57:40 PM1) Does it violate the setting? I.e., is the insertion so incongruous  or implausible within the established tone, time, place, etc. that it "bumps" the reader, thereby harming immersion and worsening the work.

This part I can get behind to some degree, but I only really apply it to historical (or, to a lesser degree, pseudo-historical) settings. If you're talking about something like Lion & Dragon, then the point is to play up the historical accurracy. If you're playing L5R, the point is to play up the "sorta-but-not-entirely-mystic/feudal-Japan," but this gives more room than the first example. If you're playing Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk D&D, then the barriers are all but non-existent in my eyes as damn near anything can fit into these settings.

I intentionally declined to apply these rules to the module discussed above, because I have neither read the module nor paid any attention to the Forgotten Realms in the last decade. I don't really feel qualified to speak on the cultural context of the FR, much less Greyhawk (which I know even less about). I'll use the example of the Warhammer Old World, instead. In that setting, gay marriage would absolutely be out of place, at least in the Empire. The Warhammer Empire is certainly a "pseudo-historic" representation of Renaissance central Europe, with the primary cultural difference being that it is if anything, more religiously conservative.

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 21, 2024, 11:04:31 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on May 21, 2024, 09:57:40 PM2) What motivated this? Sometimes the motivation is spiteful, which obviously diminishes the product. More often the motive is propagandistic and/or corporate. Both propaganda and obvious corporate interference can have the same "bumping" effect that violating the setting does, and should generally be disdained as being without artistic merit.

This one doesn't have much pull with me. Inclusion of people and their ideas is inherently a good thing. Gatekeeping is the path of the asshole, and this includes gatekeeping against LGBTQ representation in fantasy worlds.

And that argument doesn't have much pull with me. Separate representation from inclusion, because the two aren't synonymous, and conflating them clouds the issue. I've yet to see a persuasive case made that representation, in and of itself, confers any material benefit worth compromising an existing artistic work for.

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 21, 2024, 11:04:31 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on May 21, 2024, 09:57:40 PM3. Does it violate the artistic intent of the original creator? This one is unique to intellectual properties that have been handed off to new authors due to corporate or business transactions, but I absolutely hate the continual disrespect of artists by corporate actors who have no right to do so other than working for a company which has purchased the legal ownership of the work.

This means almost nothing to me. The original version belongs to the original creator, not necessarily everything that comes from it later.  I do appreciate the work put in by originators, but new versions need to be free to take new paths. As an example, consider that the Old Testament largely belongs to Jews, but they don't get a claim on Christian Bibles that pick up on their material and go on from there. As for D&D, Greyhawk in particular, the "artistic intent" was to have a setting for all those dungeons to occupy for those that liked more continuity in their D&D. The new version will certainly have that goal.

Agree to disagree, I suppose. I clearly consider it a greater disrespect to art to contradict the values or intent of a work in what is supposed to be a version of it, but I do count it as a mitigating factor if the new property makes it clear that it is intended as a different spin on the original, rather than a continuation or replacement of it. I suppose that gets back to the question of malicious intent. A remake that inverts all the values of the original out of spite for those values is a lot more offensive to me than a good-natured parody or an honest attempt to do a new take on a story. I'm not going to get upset about 10 things I Hate About You because Shakespeare didn't intend The Taming of the Shrew to be set in a California high school, but a James Bond film which makes Bond into an incompetent boob and mocks him for being a misogynistic dinosaur, or replaces him with a preachy feminist Jane Bond, would be a (probably intentional) insult not only to Ian Fleming and Albert Broccoli, but to anyone who likes the original James Bond books/movies.

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 21, 2024, 11:04:31 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on May 21, 2024, 09:57:40 PM4. At whom is this targeted? This is almost, but not entirely, exclusive to the insertion of sexual issues or content into a work. There are very good reasons to be cautious with the pace and context in which children and adolescents are exposed to sexual content during their development.

I am willing to agree on this point, but mostly when it comes to obscenity and overtly sexualized materials. WotC has not done this, for either heterosexual or homosexual relationships. If they did, I would be opposed to either/both appearing in general release game books. I do not think that anyone capable of reading and understanding a D&D Players Handbook is too young/immature to handle the idea of a homosexual couple that appear fully clothed going about their daily work.

I might be prepared to agree with you there (with the qualifier that we probably disagree on the definition of "overtly sexualized"), but I'd have to put some serious thought into what the youngest age someone can reasonably be expected to get into D&D is. The D&D "educator resources" program offers programs for "grades 4-6 and 6-8", which is quite a broad range, and I don't know what content is included in that program. I will say that at the young end of that range is too young to be introducing kids to questions of gender/sexual identity, though the old end of the range probably isn't. It's always going to be difficult to draw that line, though, because of the different ages at which different children mature and hit puberty.

Quote from: ForgottenF on May 22, 2024, 12:11:08 AMI might be prepared to agree with you there (with the qualifier that we probably disagree on the definition of "overtly sexualized"), but I'd have to put some serious thought into what the youngest age someone can reasonably be expected to get into D&D is. The D&D "educator resources" program offers programs for "grades 4-6 and 6-8", which is quite a broad range, and I don't know what content is included in that program. I will say that at the young end of that range is too young to be introducing kids to questions of gender/sexual identity, though the old end of the range probably isn't. It's always going to be difficult to draw that line, though, because of the different ages at which different children mature and hit puberty.

I feel that if a player is old enough to engage in "killing and taking other people's stuff" in their fantasy world, they can probably handle a family with a kid and two dads in that same world. Again, I'm talking about a non-sexualized (non-prurient) portrayal. If Christian kids can handle the idea of the immaculate conception from a young age, this shouldn't be any harder to grasp.

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 22, 2024, 12:28:08 AMI feel that if a player is old enough to engage in "killing and taking other people's stuff" in their fantasy world, they can probably handle a family with a kid and two dads in that same world.

Nope.

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 21, 2024, 12:49:32 AM

Quote from: Omega on May 21, 2024, 12:29:20 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 20, 2024, 06:37:00 PMThe presence of explicitly gay characters in a D&D setting does not make it "Not D&D" in any appreciable way. How does having them in there hurt the product?

It is not the presence that is the problem. Its the agenda behind it being there.

Same with minorities and combat wheelchairs. No one would give a flying fuck if it was being done for anything other than the woke agenda.

So you oppose their motivations (which you may not completely understand) by opposing their actions (which you concede are not a problem).

Well apparently I understand it better than you ever will?

I am not conceding anything. wotc has stated they have an agenda. Im just pointing out how inept they have been at actualizing it.

They make these claims left and right and then time and again either feeble it, or dont actually do anything at all. This is a company that lies.

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 21, 2024, 12:54:21 AMHow many LGBTQ people have you spoken to about this (FWIW, I've only spoken to three in person)? How do they view it? From your perspective, it is demeaning or meaningless, but you are not likely to be one of the ones they are doing it for.

I've talked to far far more people than you. And NO they do not like being exploited. That you can not grasp that treating people as checkboxes is wrong is telling.

But keep struggling.

Quote from: jeff37923 on May 21, 2024, 01:30:52 AMOmega, WotC has made intellectual property icon use contracts with Converse and LEGO. That is significantly more than just monetizing fan crafts.

Lego toys does not a lifestyle make. Especially when its shuttered behind a 300$ price tag. TSR did this stuff long before wotc.

Despite their claims to be moving in-house more. They outsource and monetize via licensing more than they actually produce. They dont even have a printing arm anymore. They axed that when 5e came out and outsourced the books even.