Quote from: HappyDaze on March 13, 2025, 02:40:50 AM

Quote from: Valatar on March 12, 2025, 09:47:42 PMThe point is that Victorian anti-homosexuality laws have NOTHING to do with a group of investigators struggling against elder gods that want to devour the world.  There's a reason that Lovecraft's protagonists were generally single reclusive men, apart from the author's grave social anxieties: Interpersonal drama between characters would only dilute a horror tale with pointless chaff.  The protagonists' love lives didn't matter.  The protagonists' opinions on the political clime of the day didn't matter.  Day to day human problems didn't matter because an octopus-faced great old one was coming to eat the city.

It's a testament to the narcissism of the authors, or what they perceive their audience to be, that they feel that the PCs' sex lives should be remotely close to center stage when the species is on the brink of a hellish extinction.

Those characters were not born knowing the role they would play in an Elder God's story. They presumably had their own backstories that involved love lives, political opinions, and day to day problems. Some players may want to explore the cultural context on what that might have looked like.

And some players can if they want to. But the majority is exploring dungeons not sexuality. Oh the horror of someone calling someone a slur when right next to it people are being eaten alive.
I also think making sex a theme in a TTRPG setting is juvenile at best.
But I guess I shouldn't expect much from a generation where sexuality is the whole center of human existence.

Bottom line is, if your group gets a kick out of weird fetish play then by all means have fun. But for the rest of us "Cosmic horror" means fighting eldrich monsters.

Quote from: Steeldom on March 14, 2025, 05:59:18 AMAnd some players can if they want to.

And that's all the reason for it to exist. Some players may have use out of it. Buy/use or don't, depending on the total product, not just a few paragraphs.

Quote from: blackstone on March 13, 2025, 08:31:06 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 13, 2025, 04:48:38 PMWould you really like to know?

Yes, I would. Please...

PM sent.

Quote from: blackstone on March 13, 2025, 02:05:45 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 13, 2025, 01:48:21 PMYou seem to be projecting your gay porn fantasy onto others. You must be so unhappy with yourself.

Nope. No fantasies. Happily straight and married.

Obviously HappyDaze didn't read #1 in your signature text.

Quote from: blackstone on March 13, 2025, 02:05:45 PMWhich shows to me how completely utterly pathetic you are. Living your life precariously though the internet. Trying to be the internet tough guy.

Obviously, HappyDaze didn't read #2 in your signature text.

Quote from: Steeldom on March 14, 2025, 05:59:18 AMI also think making sex a theme in a TTRPG setting is juvenile at best.

But it gets you accolades.  Possum Creek Games' Yazeba's Bed and Breakfast, a gay sex themed RPG, was nominated for a Nebula Award.  You know, the award the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association gave to Thirsty Sword Lesbians.  Possum Creek is now integrated into Steve Jackson Games, who only a few years ago, had a policy against adult material in its games, to maintain the appearance of a family-oriented company.  Now they're touting Yazeba's Bed and Breakfast to a fan base demographic that will continue to dwindle away amidst the anti-woke backlash in our culture.

EDIT: I'm sure Yazeba's will win, since being a game designer with autogynophilia, and not the quality of a game, is the criteria the judges will be using.

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 14, 2025, 06:47:25 AMAnd that's all the reason for it to exist.

This type of Gaslighting doesn't work anymore.

I don't have to make the pattern recognition argument anymore.  I don't have to make the "connections" argument anymore.  I don't even have to make the "here's some other examples" argument anymore.

The fact of the matter is that the publishers have been telling us that they are intentionally shitting up IPs with this kind of thing on purpose as both a virtue signal and to "own the CHUDs."

Quote from: BadApple on March 14, 2025, 07:52:27 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 14, 2025, 06:47:25 AMAnd that's all the reason for it to exist.

This type of Gaslighting doesn't work anymore.

I don't have to make the pattern recognition argument anymore.  I don't have to make the "connections" argument anymore.  I don't even have to make the "here's some other examples" argument anymore.

The fact of the matter is that the publishers have been telling us that they are intentionally shitting up IPs with this kind of thing on purpose as both a virtue signal and to "own the CHUDs."

Perhaps you should stop identifying as a CHUD.

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 14, 2025, 07:58:35 AMPerhaps you should stop identifying as a CHUD.

Ran out of preprogrammed responses, did you?  Ad hominem attacks are off topic...

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 14, 2025, 06:47:25 AM

Quote from: Steeldom on March 14, 2025, 05:59:18 AMAnd some players can if they want to.

And that's all the reason for it to exist. Some players may have use out of it. Buy/use or don't, depending on the total product, not just a few paragraphs.

Then let those "some players" add it for their game. Instead we have companies adding bullshit for everyone because "some people" might want it.

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 14, 2025, 06:47:25 AM

Quote from: Steeldom on March 14, 2025, 05:59:18 AMAnd some players can if they want to.

And that's all the reason for it to exist. Some players may have use out of it. Buy/use or don't, depending on the total product, not just a few paragraphs.

It extisting in a vacuum sure. It being sludged onto existing IPs, no. And the second is exactly what the red list is about.
This is a guide on NOT to buy woke product. Inserting sex, race etc. as an immediate topic is exactly that and in most cases it comes with the usual side effects: backlash, calling fans "toxic" etc.

You want that: go buy that. I won't.
And I'm glad people are finally pushing back. For example there has always been media centered about gay people. Hell, anime even has genres SPECIFICALLY for those subjects. You want that. You buy that. No one bats an eye.

But you cannot compare the insistense of changing existing IPs into this with "the right to exist".

But you're not here to have a conversation. You're sitting behind your desk sipping on a cup that says "cis white male tears" and feel so utterly empowered by "triggering the alt rights"
You would not "ask" the questions you do and would not make those statements if you understood anything thats being talked about here. So this is my last reply to you. Have fun I guess.

I know it is slightly off-topic but please just ignore happydaze, he is a constant troll on the site.

Quote from: blackstone on March 13, 2025, 01:14:57 PMChief Petty Officer Chad Thundercock USN

LOL. I needed a good laugh. Thank you.

Sorry to interrupt. Back to your regularly scheduled show.

Quote from: Steeldom on March 14, 2025, 05:59:18 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 13, 2025, 02:40:50 AMThose characters were not born knowing the role they would play in an Elder God's story. They presumably had their own backstories that involved love lives, political opinions, and day to day problems. Some players may want to explore the cultural context on what that might have looked like.

And some players can if they want to. But the majority is exploring dungeons not sexuality. Oh the horror of someone calling someone a slur when right next to it people are being eaten alive.
I also think making sex a theme in a TTRPG setting is juvenile at best.
But I guess I shouldn't expect much from a generation where sexuality is the whole center of human existence.

Bottom line is, if your group gets a kick out of weird fetish play then by all means have fun. But for the rest of us "Cosmic horror" means fighting eldrich monsters.

This is a false binary. I've had romantic side-plots in my Call of Cthulhu games going back to college. Multiple published Call of Cthulhu adventures note possible romance with a few of the many NPCs described. That doesn't mean that the game as a whole isn't fighting eldritch monsters. Likewise, Conan will likely romance a captive girl he frees -- but that doesn't mean that the story is primarily a romance. It's a side plot.

It's normal for people to pursue romantic relations almost as much as eating or sleeping. It's a big part of life, and romantic plots feature in almost all of the source fiction for RPGs, from Conan to James Bond to superheroes and more.

Quote from: jhkim on March 14, 2025, 03:14:11 PMThis is a false binary. I've had romantic side-plots in my Call of Cthulhu games going back to college. Multiple published Call of Cthulhu adventures note possible romance with a few of the many NPCs described. That doesn't mean that the game as a whole isn't fighting eldritch monsters. Likewise, Conan will likely romance a captive girl he frees -- but that doesn't mean that the story is primarily a romance. It's a side plot.

It's normal for people to pursue romantic relations almost as much as eating or sleeping. It's a big part of life, and romantic plots feature in almost all of the source fiction for RPGs, from Conan to James Bond to superheroes and more.

Exactly.  I don't even include the concept of homosexuality in Radical High.  If people want to use the game to play out gay/trans/CGM adventures in the 80s, they don't need it explicitly pointed out in the book for them to do that.  And if they bought the game to do that, I'm not going to intrude on their sessions and tell them they're "playing it wrong".

See, it's a two-way no meddling contract: you play the game the way you want, and I (any writers) are to be left alone from the Social Justice Mafia, not forced to include your extreme views in our work.

The trick to Mythos stuff is that it's typically extremely time-sensitive.  If you've found out that fish people are planning on calling Dagon forth from the sea to feast upon the land-dwellers, you can't really take a weekend off to explore your character's backstory, regardless of whatever it may be, which is why going and dangling obvious bait in the setting book is just encouraging That Guy to derail the campaign with his tri-gender otherkin's adventures in making it all about current-day sexual politics in Victorian London.  Of course, any GM allowing such a person into their game is sort of asking for what they get regardless of what's printed in the book, as folks have pointed out.