Quote from: Naburimannu on August 23, 2021, 04:39:50 AM

Quote from: Ocule on August 22, 2021, 04:08:10 PM
Or knowing if I buy like tashas it's gonna be full of woke bullshit

Maybe we have very different tolerance for bullshit, but "full of woke bullshit" feels like a massive exaggeration to me. Or are we triggered by the word "trigger"?
Looking in Tasha's, which is 192 pages, I'm hardly finding any wokeness:

• Are we considering allowing PCs to change racial ability score increases (pg 7) "woke"? I don't like it, it doesn't fit the kind of game I want to play, but it is very clearly motivated with "PCs are exceptional individuals who don't have to conform to the racial archetypes at all". The race still has those archetypes.
• Ditto allowing PCs to change languages or cultural proficiencies (pg 7) or personality (pg , although both ought to be changed if you're running in a thickly-detailed world.
• Chapter 4 talks about Session Zero, so there's encouragement to explicitly discuss hard & soft limits on pg 141. I suspect some of the posters on here would find a couple of those paragraphs overly solicitous of player concerns.
  

That's everything I can find?

Personally, I'm not offended by any of that, even though I don't want to use all of them; I'm far more offended by the wastes of space from poor editing and from a house style that seems to be aimed at readers instead of gamers. There are far more pages spent on Artificers - 15! - or various sub-classes who don't fit into most of the game-worlds I want to run, than on overwritten restatements of "PCs might not be normal" or "you should plan the kind of game your players want to play".

Page 4: "Everything in this book is optional. Each group, guided by the DM, decides which of these options, if any, to incorporate into a campaign."

I think you do raise some good points. A lot of this "SJW Takeover of DnD" stuff is starting to feel rather overblown.  The truth is that WotC can't confiscate your books if you choose to play the game in a way the creators wouldn't approve of.

-Removing alignment

-removing racial characteristics and essentially turning every character into either a human or a human-in-cosplay with no distinctions

-destroying the concept of archetypes and myth

-the entire setting is 21st century seattle with magic

-Mandatory session zero and rules that make the most demanding or politically activist player able to hold the entire rest of the gaming group hostage to their demands in the named of "social justice"


I would say these are not small things.

And the Candlekeep book was worse than tasha's. And Woke Ravenloft was worse than Candlekeep.

Do you see where this is going?

Quote from: RPGPundit on August 24, 2021, 03:37:15 PM
-Removing alignment

-removing racial characteristics and essentially turning every character into either a human or a human-in-cosplay with no distinctions

-destroying the concept of archetypes and myth

-the entire setting is 21st century seattle with magic

-Mandatory session zero and rules that make the most demanding or politically activist player able to hold the entire rest of the gaming group hostage to their demands in the named of "social justice"


I would say these are not small things.

And the Candlekeep book was worse than tasha's. And Woke Ravenloft was worse than Candlekeep.

Do you see where this is going?

   Do you feel these movements in their tone have been accelerating?   I have no idea how most of the gang running WOTC think, I do know Crawford's point of view, because I do not think he can talk for more than a minute and not tell me.   Do you think this is him, or all of them, or just sort of a let the inmates run the asylum?

Quote from: oggsmash on August 24, 2021, 03:48:41 PM
   Do you feel these movements in their tone have been accelerating?   

I jumped off the WotC wagon with Tasha's, but it definitely looks that way, just looking at the advertising for Strixhaven. Or the fundraising drive for Mermaids (a charity Trans-itioning children) I saw on the their site front page. At this point WoTC is nearly as woke as the Metropolitan Police! 

Quote from: RPGPundit on August 24, 2021, 03:37:15 PM
-Removing alignment

-removing racial characteristics and essentially turning every character into either a human or a human-in-cosplay with no distinctions

-destroying the concept of archetypes and myth

-the entire setting is 21st century seattle with magic

-Mandatory session zero and rules that make the most demanding or politically activist player able to hold the entire rest of the gaming group hostage to their demands in the named of "social justice"


I would say these are not small things.

And the Candlekeep book was worse than tasha's. And Woke Ravenloft was worse than Candlekeep.

This is exactly the problem... Corporate pandering leads to more and more of this sjw shit being seen as 'legitimate'. I don't play nu D&D. But unfortunately, this is starting to filter into other games, and into the mindset of game designers (old and new). Who now feel like they have to start injecting this guff to sell their games. Or fear a twatter hate mob if they don't.

Quote from: Ocule on August 22, 2021, 04:08:10 PM

Is it nonsense considering a lot of these morons will actually tell you this.

Nope but listening to some tell it here its all made up that (some) have literally told you (certain customers) they don't want your money for wrong/bad think.

Double post.

Out of the 12 players in my rpg group playing 5E for the past 3 1/2 years. One still plays 5E.

That doesn't mean anything by itself but It just seems like a LOT of people are leaving the 5E mess behind.

We have never left D&D. Some of us have been playing since OD&D and have played every edition and even liked every edition 3.5 and 4E. We started out loving 5E. Three years though and its MANY HORRIBLE flaws required so many house rules we were not playing 5E really anymore.....but we kept on.....it wasn't until the game veered HARD left that we suddenly realized we were trying to make a horrible game system work just because it was D&D and unfortunately D&D doesn't mean what it once did.

The first edition of the game that once I was done, I got rid of every single book. I do not want that crap on my bookshelf.

Quote from: Torque2100 on August 24, 2021, 07:09:03 AM

Quote from: Naburimannu on August 23, 2021, 04:39:50 AM

Quote from: Ocule on August 22, 2021, 04:08:10 PM
Or knowing if I buy like tashas it's gonna be full of woke bullshit

Maybe we have very different tolerance for bullshit, but "full of woke bullshit" feels like a massive exaggeration to me. Or are we triggered by the word "trigger"?
Looking in Tasha's, which is 192 pages, I'm hardly finding any wokeness:

• Are we considering allowing PCs to change racial ability score increases (pg 7) "woke"? I don't like it, it doesn't fit the kind of game I want to play, but it is very clearly motivated with "PCs are exceptional individuals who don't have to conform to the racial archetypes at all". The race still has those archetypes.
• Ditto allowing PCs to change languages or cultural proficiencies (pg 7) or personality (pg , although both ought to be changed if you're running in a thickly-detailed world.
• Chapter 4 talks about Session Zero, so there's encouragement to explicitly discuss hard & soft limits on pg 141. I suspect some of the posters on here would find a couple of those paragraphs overly solicitous of player concerns.
  

That's everything I can find?

Personally, I'm not offended by any of that, even though I don't want to use all of them; I'm far more offended by the wastes of space from poor editing and from a house style that seems to be aimed at readers instead of gamers. There are far more pages spent on Artificers - 15! - or various sub-classes who don't fit into most of the game-worlds I want to run, than on overwritten restatements of "PCs might not be normal" or "you should plan the kind of game your players want to play".

Page 4: "Everything in this book is optional. Each group, guided by the DM, decides which of these options, if any, to incorporate into a campaign."

I think you do raise some good points. A lot of this "SJW Takeover of DnD" stuff is starting to feel rather overblown.  The truth is that WotC can't confiscate your books if you choose to play the game in a way the creators wouldn't approve of.

I think at least where I'm living it is very hard to find a game of anything other than 5E because 5E is popular and the majority of fairweather zoomers who like Critical Role play it. I've had very little success getting people I know interested in anything other than what is popular. I'd love to completely leave 5E behind and transition to b/x or other games. But I also had a humilating experience at my LGS once when I tried to show people Traveller and people accused me of gatekeeping for even just showing the book off.

If you're lucky enough to have an open minded group of friends then you should be okay to play whatever you want. If you rely on PUGs as I do you are just fucked for the most part.

There's nothing wrong, IMO, with 5E itself. I'm actually a big fan of the advantage/disadvantage system.

Trust me, after you've played Imagine, 5E is downright friendly

The problems come from (a) the hordes of newbs drawn in by Critical Role, and (b) the incessant slide leftwards that WOTC is indulging in. The former is manageable, if annoying; the latter is very bad for the game and the hobby.

I need an explanation. Euro guy.
Is the thing about "Democrats are adding political stuff in their games, and I'm Conservative"?
Or it's simply "I'm Conservative, and I don't want for you to criticize me"?
Or "I read somewhere that Dems will kill you if you don't agree?"
Or even "That's my game, I don't want any moral lecture, let me hate whatever"?

I mean, I'm strongly left oriented, and probably I'll consider most of your political ideas total bullshit, so to me you MUST be criticized the whole life until you'll agree your vision of reality is wrong - that's how politics work.  You got a position, and the responsibility of that in a democracy is being on a debate for that position.
But I don't have any reason to justify why this should influence entertainments. Entertainments should be neutrals. I don't want 'left oriented games'... it doesn't mean nothing T_T.

I dunno, to me GDR never sounded as "not inclusive" the way it was, it was probably the most inclusive thing I ever practiced in my life. Every guy with social issues could finally find a comparted sandbox to learn socialization and feel adequate.
So there was any need to add  some inclusivity clause? About what? I've played multiculturally already in the '90 in a country that's NOT multicultural... girls were welcome, no kid abused... and many of my best players and pals were right or far right supporters. We discussed about immigrants, fascism (FOR REAL, how USA people can debate on fascism and communism is SF to me), nationalism and feminism plain and clearly. I never thought "nah, this guy cannot join the game, too [woke/nazi]" as that trait is never brought up so strongly to be a factor of exclusion. It isn't a factor, your barman or the one conducting the bus can be lefty/righty and you'll never know...
My fear, and my doubt, is that there's an uncanny social tension oversea I cannot relate to. And it's  bad, most of RPG industry is USA based.

So really I feel dazed. I should defend left-oriented ideologies, but it look they are doing bad, so I have to agree on the WRONG term with some right-oriented guy that to me should totally change ideals, but in a context that to me is not anything proficient for politics?

WTF, how woke and Trump and Twitter complicated my life T_T...

To be fair, I will not buy anything. Just self made homebrew and that's all.

Quote from: Seve on August 25, 2021, 12:21:47 PM
I need an explanation. Euro guy.
Is the thing about "Democrats are adding political stuff in their games, and I'm Conservative"?
Or it's simply "I'm Conservative, and I don't want for you to criticize me"?
Or "I read somewhere that Dems will kill you if you don't agree?"
Or even "That's my game, I don't want any moral lecture, let me hate whatever"?

I mean, I'm strongly left oriented, and probably I'll consider most of your political ideas total bullshit, so to me you MUST be criticized the whole life until you'll agree your vision of reality is wrong - that's how politics work.  You got a position, and the responsibility of that in a democracy is being on a debate for that position.
But I don't have any reason to justify why this should influence entertainments. Entertainments should be neutrals. I don't want 'left oriented games'... it doesn't mean nothing T_T.

I dunno, to me GDR never sounded as "not inclusive" the way it was, it was probably the most inclusive thing I ever practiced in my life. Every guy with social issues could finally find a comparted sandbox to learn socialization and feel adequate.
So there was any need to add  some inclusivity clause? About what? I've played multiculturally already in the '90 in a country that's NOT multicultural... girls were welcome, no kid abused... and many of my best players and pals were right or far right supporters. We discussed about immigrants, fascism (FOR REAL, how USA people can debate on fascism and communism is SF to me), nationalism and feminism plain and clearly. I never thought "nah, this guy cannot join the game, too [woke/nazi]" as that trait is never brought up so strongly to be a factor of exclusion. It isn't a factor, your barman or the one conducting the bus can be lefty/righty and you'll never know...
My fear, and my doubt, is that there's an uncanny social tension oversea I cannot relate to. And it's  bad, most of RPG industry is USA based.

So really I feel dazed. I should defend left-oriented ideologies, but it look they are doing bad, so I have to agree on the WRONG term with some right-oriented guy that to me should totally change ideals, but in a context that to me is not anything proficient for politics?

WTF, how woke and Trump and Twitter complicated my life T_T...

To be fair, I will not buy anything. Just self made homebrew and that's all.

Long story short, a lot of these companies are run by people who would describe themselves as left though sometimes we call them far left because they have went well beyond the point of rational thought. The whole left/right idea or liberal/conservative names are pretty meaningless considering neither one is what they started out to be.

The reason for this list is a few reasons, the first being of course that some of us are tired of being preached to regardless if we agree or not. Another is the constant subversion of things we enjoy with subtle or not so subtle jabs being actually written into the books. Gender, race or orientation swapping characters we already know (see legend of the 5 rings) or having obvious stand ins for current politics (like this bbeg is clearly supposed to be Trump or <insert guy or policy here>) or more absurd things like the combat wheelchair. The biggest reason however is the open hatred and tribalism we are seeing where a difference of opinion on how to handle something like immigration or the best way to handle the pandemic turns into "I hate you, and you are wrong for existing"

Here in the states at least this takes the form of just calling people out or telling them off on the internet, to posting peoples personally identifiable information such as home address and where they work, to interfering with the businesses of others (like the GamerGate card game that Evil Hat got pulled off of dtrpg or like Oriental Adventures which some guy named Kwan tried to get removed), i've
personally seen people calling someones job and trying to get them fired, death threats etc.

So this is about two things, the first is not being preached at because you dont always know before you buy the book. The second is just not giving business to people who actually hate you and want to cause you real harm. Not "I read somewhere" but having watched them do real harm to real people.

Quote from: Ocule on August 25, 2021, 01:41:53 PM
So this is about two things, the first is not being preached at because you dont always know before you buy the book. The second is just not giving business to people who actually hate you and want to cause you real harm. Not "I read somewhere" but having watched them do real harm to real people.

This I totally agree with this. Fuck any preachy bastard, full stop, and I'm not going to support people I don't like. They are free to do it to me as well.

When you say SJW doing 'real harm' in what context (in the sphere of rpgs). Are you just referring to cancel culture?

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on August 25, 2021, 01:46:33 PM

Quote from: Ocule on August 25, 2021, 01:41:53 PM
So this is about two things, the first is not being preached at because you dont always know before you buy the book. The second is just not giving business to people who actually hate you and want to cause you real harm. Not "I read somewhere" but having watched them do real harm to real people.

This I totally agree with this. Fuck any preachy bastard, full stop, and I'm not going to support people I don't like. They are free to do it to me as well.

When you say SJW doing 'real harm' in what context (in the sphere of rpgs). Are you just referring to cancel culture?

Was referring to going after peoples jobs and livelihoods. So cancel culture is probably included with interrupting livelihood but also getting people fired, attacking them on the street, death threats, doxxing, etc.

Quote from: Ocule on August 25, 2021, 01:51:45 PM
Was referring to going after peoples jobs and livelihoods. So cancel culture is probably included with interrupting livelihood but also getting people fired, attacking them on the street, death threats, doxxing, etc.

Cheers for the clarification.

Well, in that context it seems to be a very legitimate concern. Fucking with people's livelihoods (I mean by actively going out of their way just to hurt someone and their family) because you don't 'like them' or because they vote differently from you is a vile concept. This is not how old school lefties, like myself think. This is defintly a nu ultra left ideology and concept.