Quote from: Sigmund;470013...saying the moderation here is anywhere near as bad as RPG.net is lying through their teeth...

RPG.net, as we all know, is rife with hypocrisy and one-sided bullshit banter in the guise of enlightened and inclusive debate, but that in the end is just an "Our way or the highway" mentality. I like...no, love...that I can come here and read about RPGs and when it might go OT and run into a sensitive topic, I don't feel afraid to speak my mind. I've read some things on here I like and some I don't, but that's awesome. I can't grow living in an intellectual vacuum and welcome opposing views, even if they get under my skin.

Quote from: beejazz;470011I don't believe in it anyway.
What?
England.
Just a conspiracy of cartographers then?

Priceless!

Quote from: GameDaddy;469959If you are deliberately trying to damage RPG gaming, you might not be welcome here.

ehh, a bit heavy on the pathos? How many of these corrupting game designers have you seen around here, or anywhere else for that matter like? Love the Little Billy stories though - we need more white knights to safe the kids, and roleplaying games.

Quote from: Talking_Muffin;470019RPG.net, as we all know, is rife with hypocrisy and one-sided bullshit banter in the guise of enlightened and inclusive debate, but that in the end is just an "Our way or the highway" mentality. I like...no, love...that I can come here and read about RPGs and when it might go OT and run into a sensitive topic, I don't feel afraid to speak my mind. I've read some things on here I like and some I don't, but that's awesome. I can't grow living in an intellectual vacuum and welcome opposing views, even if they get under my skin.

I agree completely, which is why I have frequented this forum for as many years as i have Pundit took it over when it was dying and built a great site out of it.

Quote from: Sigmund;470024I agree completely, which is why I have frequented this forum for as many years as i have Pundit took it over when it was dying and built a great site out of it.

Thank you.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Koltar;470000Again, I don't see 'sexism' in the current version of the RPG Hobby.
 Its either tonight or next Monday that an all women players campaign starts up at our store.

It seems like this is making sexism into an exaggerated binary - i.e. either there is no sexism anywhere in the hobby, or the hobby is so sexist that an all-women campaign would be totally impossible because virtually all women would be driven out.  I see lots of women players as well, but that doesn't mean that the hobby is completely free of any sexism.  

I don't think the RPG hobby is outrageously sexist, but sexism exists within general society and it exists in our hobby as well.  

As for what in the books can be sexist:
1) People have already mentioned illustrations.  Illustrations can follow a trend of sexist stereotypes, even if such isn't intended.  If women are almost never powerful and almost always sexy, that conveys a negative impression.

2) The same can be said of examples.  i.e. If the characters in rules examples or the NPCs in adventures follow patterns, that can have the same effect.  For example, the Star Trek RPG (1999) has a bunch of fiction snippets, and there are two places where women appear.  These two are as follows:

Quote...Open a channel, Lieutenant."

Lieutenant Danna complied, not without a certain nervousness.  First-contact situations were fraught with peril.  The six-inch scar on her left thigh was testament to that, a souvenir of the ship's first brush with the Matapedians.  Everything had worked out okay in the end, thanks to Captain Diamond's quick thinking.  Moments like this still made her edgy, though.

Quote"Shall I open communications, sir?" Communications Officer Thursen's voice quavered slightly with the anticipation of announcing the arrival of the Yorktown.
        "Wait until we're through the Ring, Lieutenant," Captain Foster advised. "It won't hurt us to get a little closer to our destination."
        Thursen lowered her head to hide the slight flush that reddened her cheek. She wondered if her eagerness to take a more active role in the approach made her seem even more of a new recruit than her shipmates. She admired Lieutenant Vashenka's composure and Helmsman D'wara's complete concentration. Sometimes she thought her graduation from the academy was a fluke. She wondered if the others felt the same way.

Others have suggested that this is correctly representing the sexism of original series Star Trek - i.e. there are female officers, but they're only good for opening hailing frequencies, and they tremble at even doing that.  However, I think that's a thin excuse.  We manage to do pulps without having the incredibly racist stereotypes of the pulps from the 1930s, and we manage to make Lovecraftian adventures without including his outrageous racist caricatures.

An out-of-date example from a now out-of-print RPG book doesn't exactly bolster your point. (12 YEARS out of date)

CURRENT players in a Star Trek role playing game KNOW that women have led fighter jet squadrons launched off of aircraft carriers - in real life. Women have also recently started commanding ships in the US Navy...and just this week there is an Associated Press article that later this fall women officers will swerve onboard submarines for the first time.

They also have seen examples of women commanders in the STAR TREK shows made since that book was published.

So yeah , you got a VERY weak argument example there.

- Ed C.

The hobby is merely an activity to engage in for fun. The hobby has no motives or political agenda and therefore cannot be sexist.

People who participate in the hobby (like everyone else) are capable of bringing sexism into gaming or any other aspect of thier lives.

So like anything else on the face of the earth, sexism is there when people bring it with them.

Quote from: RPGPundit;469971Really? Then do you denounce the recent policy changes at RPG.net that prohibit the raising of men's issues in feminist threads, while still explicitly permitting feminists to raise up women's issues in male threads?

Will you come out and say that this policy is basically thought control?

RPGPundit

I don't think it's "thought control", but yes, it does stifle certain kinds of obnoxious speech that should be dealt with by individuals confronting the dipshits in question, rather than hammering them with the easily abused authority of the mods.

Now, are you going to admit that you lied when you said that you don't temp-ban people, and man up more generally to unban Seanchai (and walkerp, for that matter)?

Sigmund> I don't think this place is as bad as RPG.net, but I don't think that it should be exonerated simply by comparison, either. It's important to nip this shit in the bud before we become RPG.net with Pundit playing the role of Cessna.

Quote from: RPGPundit;469927Suggesting that Bill the Butcher was the villain would in essence seem to suggest that Leonardo Di Caprio was a "hero".  And I can't even write that without putting in quotation marks around it.

Bill was the only guy in the entire film that actually Got It, that understood what was happening.  That alone to me makes him, if not the "hero", then at least the real protagonist.

RPGPundit

I think rrgardless of his status as a hero or villain, most can agree he was an awesome character and lewis was great in the role. Maybe because i like horror movies, i tend to think of the villain as the interesting and fun character and the hero as vanilla ( i also think goid villains drive the story more than the hero does), so i would prefer to think of the butcher as a villain, and a truly great one.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;470057Sigmund> I don't think this place is as bad as RPG.net, but I don't think that it should be exonerated simply by comparison, either. It's important to nip this shit in the bud before we become RPG.net with Pundit playing the role of Cessna.

I haven't been here long enough to understand the past examples more than what I've been able to read, however it seems this Senchai dude had ample warnings to stop whatever he was doing that was bad, but didn't.

If Pundit just caves in and let's him back in, that can lead to people running roughshod all over his role as a mod. One thing I can comment on without bias is that calling Pundit names and saying he's a fascist or cunt or whatever, probably isn't going to sway him. I agree that if Pundit's being a "Fear me and my banning...ness....*ahem*..." than that sucks and should be called out. But...strangely...I think less "douchery" on all sides about it will go far towards helping arguments.

I'm not saying have a lovefest, but if a compelling, calm reason can be given as to what's bothering people, then maybe something can be reached. Is it the person being banned or the banning itself that upsets people? That's an important distinction, IMO.

The fact that people can speak their minds to Pundit pretty harshly and he just takes it and swings back says a lot about this place and it's people and how much better it is than RPG.net.

Have to say the mod policies and enforcement here I've found very refreshing. In the case of the individual poster who was banned hete, i think its fair to say he would have been banned long ago on pretty much any other forum. Mod calls are a subjective thing there is room for people to dispute pundits call. The difference between this place and a lot of others is pundit lets those disputes occur publicly. This is one pf the few forums i feel comfortable engaging in controvertial or political threads, because i am not worried about being taken the wrong way and getting banned.

Welcome to theRPGsite, bro. You must be new if you are confusing talking with Pundit for rational debate in any way, shape or form. Pundit is a persona, not a person, and is no more susceptible to rational argumentation about what he should do than Hamlet is mid-performance.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;470084Welcome to theRPGsite, bro. You must be new if you are confusing talking with Pundit for rational debate in any way, shape or form. Pundit is a persona, not a person, and is no more susceptible to rational argumentation about what he should do than Hamlet is mid-performance.

He's more rational than YOU have been in any debate on here.

I have no idea what the fuck Pundit's real name is - and I'm okay with that. He is a real person.
That I can tell.
If I met him in real life I know I could game with him at the same game table because our style prety much overlap or are similiar in what we like in RPGs. I'd also be comfortable buying him a drink.

At times , Pundit can be a bit of a curmudgeon - but he's a damn fair curmudgeon.


- Ed